A Story About Instincts and Lens Failure

[Chili]

For the last three weeks or so I haven't been very happy with my shooting when reviewing all my shots post raceday. A lot of the shots are shots I feel I should have nailed and yet could come up with no logical reason for inconsistent results other than user error. I still had many very nice shots from this lens (Sigma 70-200 f2.8)so once again not wanting to be that guy pointing to his equipment I looked in the mirror and figured it was time to re-evaluate the misses for clues. I never got anywhere with that approach.

Today I was doing some playing around with the camera during the sensor cleaning process and after one of the shots the viewfinder darkened considerably. Shutter speed changed from 1/250th to 4 seconds. No matter what I did nothing seemed to get me back to operating normally. Finally I changed to another lens and the camera operated perfectly, after much testing between all my lenses and the two 20D's I have, the common denominator was my 70-200 lens. Not sure what failed but the lens needs a trip to the service center. Of course this has to happen the Friday night of a long weekend with me leaving on the Monday for Millville where I'm supposed to have a Photo vest waiting for me to shoot the National. My only choices now are to head to a national with nothing longer than a 24-70 or purchase another lens to use while mine is away hopefully getting repaired.

If nothing else it will help me rationalize my inconsistent results of late even if it's still me :laugh:

 

[Squid31]

Doug, that's really crappy news. As you know, I have a couple buddies that have sigma gear. About 50 % of this gear had to go back to the dealer to be replaced because they quit working properly after a short time, or didn't work properly right out of the box. One guy went through 2 flashes before he decide to go to Canon. Then his 70-200 died, and had to be replaced. He now is thinking about selling the new one to go for the Canon after he tried mine and realized it was considerably faster to focus. Now I don't mean to rag on Sigma gear, but my 420 flash probably has been fired more times than my buddies 4 sigma flashes put together.

Now on the other hand, my next lens purchase will most likely be the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 macro. For $400, I'll take my chances.

So you finally heard about creds eh? Hope it works out.

 

[Okiewan]

That's a tough one Doug. My 70-200 is by far the sharpest lens I've got, sharper than the 17-40L as well. Hadn't really considered it could fail :( . I assume with the creds you can get close enough that the 24-70 should still get ya good shots? Fact is, most of the time I shoot moto, it's the lens I use becuase I'm so close to the track. Then again, I'm no moto shooter!

 

[Chili]

I bit the bullet last night and bought another Sigma 70-200 since I doubt I'll see mine anytime within 3 or 4 weeks if it goes out for service. I was really happy with mine, well at least until it puked yesterday :laugh: Bottom line is besides Millville I need a zoom for the local races which actually help pay for this equipment. I would really like to have upgraded to the Canon however no one had a non IS version in stock and the best price I could get on an IS version was $2200 CAD. Non IS would be $1500 but I can't get one now, nor can I really afford the dang thing. They were clearing out the Sigma as it is being re-released as a macro version now so I was able to pick it up for $999. If I can find a decent deal on the Canon between here and Millville or a better deal on the Sigma south of the border this one will get returned when I get back.

Emile, my creds were confirmed but I'm not counting on anything until I'm actually wearing that vest on Sunday.